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Turn 74 - 25 Nov 44

We spotted another small opportunity to be a nuisance last week on the eastern Italian coast. QBall budgeted a US Inf regiment opposite 305 Inf & 1 FJ Divs which seemed a little inadequate so we brought down 90 PzGn & a couple of PzGn bdes. This turn we strike and sweep the unlucky US 65th Regt out of the way. While unfortunately we can't quite reach the coast and cut off the US 36th Div on the coast they are isolated and certainly in danger. It would be good for morale at this stage to bag a whole division I suspect we'll miss the opportunity as he sneaks out. Oh well, worth a try. Small actions compared to NWE but points make prizes.

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf

Turn 74 - 25 Nov 44

... Small actions compared to NWE but points make prizes.

...

Hats off for

(a) spotting a decent chance to do some damage
(b) shoe-horning in a link to the sadly late, but still great, Humph ...

Maybe not a grand offensive designed to turn the tide of the war, but nibbling attacks to make him pay for keeping weak sectors of the line.

Right now I'd take a few successful nibbling attacks that keep him honest and diverts forces, over a grand but futile offensive that ends up backfiring. I'm bringing more units out of the line, but I don't ever envisage being able to get anything huge together just yet. But always eying weakness and opportunity. Call it Operation Hyena...

Turn 75 - 2 Dec 44

Peace reins over Europe as there is not a single Allied air attack, or a single Allied ground attack. Two options; either QBall has seen sense and is preparing to sue for peace. Or, he is building up for a big attack.
The weather now has turned to heavy rain and heavy mud in NWE which might give some clues. We welcome the respite to dig in a little further, though I can't help thinking the pause might help him more. I can only hope that the mud is causing problems for his logistics, especially as his chosen schwerpunkt is through the ardennes which of course not overblessed with railyards and raillines. So far it doesnt seem to have slowed him too much though.

This turn though there is only light rain over Marseille so we continue to drop bombs. Strange that its only the Luftwaffe bombing right now... At the end of last turn PR reported 100% damage to both the port and railyards, this turn more like 44% damage. Hopefully the truth is somewhere in the middle.

But also the one spot on the whole frontline where the ground is firm and dry is exactly where we need it to be, on the east coast of Italy! 36 US Div pulls back one hex to avoid encirclement but only has 6 CV and no entrenchments and LXXXV corps hammers them somewhat and forces a resounding defeat. The Allies have a backstop at Pescara so I am quietly confident this little counter-attack is played out, but we'll see how it looks next turn. A couple of extra decent divisions might allow us to continue, and maybe if we had prepared a further turn but c'est la vie. A reasonable blow that might have been devastating if we could have just got firmly to the coast last turn...

That was a nice little attack. And, every turn of bad weather is one more turn you can rest and refit!

Turn 76 - 9 Dec 44

Bit of a disaster this turn as we go from being more or less on a historical timeline, more or less hoping to hold on through winter to all of a sudden looking quite dark as the allies pretty much stride across the Rhine in multiple places. The key point we expected an attack sooner or later was the stretch south of Cologne where his schwerpunkt has been for a while. However these hexes were each held by a fresh VG division and rested and refited (weak on tanks but strong on PzGn and pak 88) dug in to level 3 behind the rhine, albeit in clear terrain. My assumptions were that given the restrictions I hoped I had put on his supplies as discussed before (240k tons less than historical per week) and the expected bottleneck in the ardennes sector with not many rail or depots sites to utilise it might take him a bit longer in mud and snow after a bit offensive to build up supplies. Unfortunately I was wrong. In the first attack he is across with relative ease as if its a stream and our two divisions aren't there. He didn't even need ground support missions.
Unfortunately also along the line he attacks a total of 12 times and we only get one hold (at least this one hold is a bright spot that cause 3k casualties).

Looking at the hex the allies attack just south of the above example its even more of a walkover. Similarly its a fresh VG division and a rested Pz Div well dug in. But here he paddles across with only 270 casualties, presumably when a couple of boats collide... Looking closer though this difference is here there are 32 unit bombing missions, thousands of 4E bomber sorties causing 3500 casualties before H-Hour. Overkill for sure, but none of the other 11 successful crossings needed similar support so this is just icing.
So what went wrong and what do to? I had hoped to put up a fight here but thats clearly not happening. If we can't hold a fortified line behind a major river in winter with 2 fresh divisions then we certainly won't hold anywhere else. It strikes me there are maybe a couple of problems, both of which maybe have their roots in too much of the mechanism being rooted in WITE. In this case though seems the river is not frozen, though at some point it would have. But this just doesnt happen at all often in western europe. I lived in Prague for 4 years through winters hitting -30c and the river never froze, 3 years living in the swiss alps were less cold and the rivers certainly didnt freeze. Doing a bit of research and since records began in 1780 the Rhine has only frozen 14 times out of 237 winters, and then usually briefly. Its just too wide, too fast and not cold enough. However in this case I don't think its frozen, but remains an issue in my humble opinion. But further to this western armies just werent equipt to fight big offensives in winter. Patroling, skirmishing, counter-attacking a broken wacht am rhine offensive yes, but not a big offensive of their own. In Tunisia in 42 the front was stable through winter, likewise in Italy in 43 and again in 44/45 the line barely shifted forward from dec44 until Op Plunder and Op Varsity crossed the Rhine in 45 after much preparation and the largest airborne drop in history. Logistically, equipment, training, mentality; the western allies were just was not playing the same sport in winter as the soviet army.

However, rant and gripe over, its a game, Qball is working it well and all of a sudden he is 4 months ahead of the historical timeline and we have no hope of holding him anywhere else. I'm curious to see how long and how difficult we can make it, but as said if we can't hold him with fresh troops here in winter dug in behind the Rhine then I'm a little out of ideas. I can only apologise on behalf of my pixeltruppen if the war ends rather quicker than we vainly hoped. Now where did I put the key to the bunker...?

I think one important issue is that the WiTW combat engine has diverged from WiTE in a key way. More than WiTW it rewards seriously outnumbering your opponent as the number of firing elements has a value beyond their intrinsic capacity.

So in WiTE with the Soviets if you had around 3-1 in manpower odds you would tend to win the battle almost regardless of cv.

In WiTW a strong (cv) defense can be overwhelmed by a numerically strong attack. You see it in Italy when a well dug in alpine regiment can be relatively easily forced out by a lot of attackers - ie ignore the cv and look at the raw numbers. Here Q-Ball is simply using the same trick, you have a cv rich, manpower poor defence so he brings a manpower heavy solution?

I wouldn't worry too much though. Past the Rhine I tend to find the war becomes a struggle between armies of ants. You've done a good job on force preservation and he will have supply problems as he's not really cleared the big Benelux ports.

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf
Looking closer though this difference is here there are 32 unit bombing missions, thousands of 4E bomber sorties causing 3500 casualties before H-Hour. Overkill for sure, but none of the other 11 successful crossings needed similar support so this is just icing.

Well to revisite it again. Yes, yes hope springs eternal. Look at the 1000 bomber strikes pre Totalize. Approxemately 250 casulties ofc half was Allied troops. The ability to bomb out any random hex in a week is sadly far from historical, but it wont change.
it wasnt what airpower did tho many still beleive the casulty side of the carpet bombing and concentrated use of airpower.

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf
But this just doesnt happen at all often in western europe. I lived in Prague for 4 years through winters hitting -30c and the river never froze, 3 years living in the swiss alps were less cold and the rivers certainly didnt freeze. Doing a bit of research and since records began in 1780 the Rhine has only frozen 14 times out of 237 winters, and then usually briefly. Its just too wide, too fast and not cold enough. However in this case I don't think its frozen, but remains an issue in my humble opinion. But further to this western armies just werent equipt to fight big offensives in winter. Patroling, skirmishing, counter-attacking a broken wacht am rhine offensive yes, but not a big offensive of their own. In Tunisia in 42 the front was stable through winter, likewise in Italy in 43 and again in 44/45 the line barely shifted forward from dec44 until Op Plunder and Op Varsity crossed the Rhine in 45 after much preparation and the largest airborne drop in history. Logistically, equipment, training, mentality; the western allies were just was not playing the same sport in winter as the soviet army.

I dont know where the mechanics stands atm in WiTW, but it was discussed during testing. IIRC, but going by memory the only time teh Rhine has been semi frozen since WWII was 1965. Joel looked into this issue IIRC.

Kind regards,
Rasmus

I'm glad it's not just me being a bit grumpy Both certainly have the ability to radically change the nature of a defensive situation. The carpet bombing was tried of course but with mixed results to say the least. If it's a regular thing now till the end of game I'll be a bit peeved but will have to suck it up. But I do feel strongly about the frozen river and general winter issue. For the allies winter and the onset of snow should reduce the tempo and their ability to mount offensives considerably.
Talking of which hopefully the onset of wife and kid issues that has reduced my turn tempo will reduce to allow me to actually finish the next turn today...

But I do feel strongly about the frozen river and general winter issue.

What's the frozen river issue? I never seen Rhine to get frozen in the game. At least it should very rare.

Funny thing that we currently discussing potential issue that existing winter penalties slow down advance too much... but this is WITE2 and 1944

The allies will always be able to take a hex or two with their superior artillery/aircraft. What they usually cant do is take the next hex after it.

In this case he hit you with around a 5-1 advantage in numbers...many of those numbers qualitatively better...like the guns. And the air that hit you disrupted a lot of your elements so they didn't actually participate in the battle...and what air didn't do..his mass number of artillery did.

So a 1-1 (CV adjusted for terrain) turned into a final 6-1.

There are some ways to defend against this. I routinely put flak gun support units in all my panzer divisions. Sometimes I put the railroad guns adjacent to areas I think will be targeted by air. They are free (don't cost admin points) to move about. The army flak regiments are only 10 admin points to remove from the cities/ports they are in....and add an impressive amount of flak to the unit.

But when push comes to shove...the allies will bring all their toys to a single point and push it back.

I found that using the panzer divisions for counterattack to be much more productive then using them on defence. After an attack like this, his CV's are usually quite low, and you can counterattack....even if you don't push the allies out of the hex they just took, you can inflict some nice losses on them. And losses equals victory points.

I can second the comment that the Rhine doesn't generally freeze in game. In my last test game, it only reached ice level 5, never freezing during the winter. The ice flows make things harder for the Allies so the Germans are rooting for some cold weather, but not too much of it. You will see some of the minor rivers freeze at times, but the major rivers in the west are unlikely to freeze.

Well that's good to know, Loki got me a bit spooked there that all our digging would be in vain if the Rhine froze. Apologies for any alarm, good to know it's highly unlikely.

As it happens it was just in vain because we are outgunned and deeply in trouble we can deal with that. In the previous river breaches on the Maas line we were often able to push back a single crossing with a Panzer suggestions and local troops as he would only have movement to get a weak bridgehead, maybe just armoured or cavalry brigades. But this time we are stretched more I guess and had armour in the line to boost CV until we could get more infantry and only had an armoured regiment in the second line, more as a stopgap really. And in any case he is across in 2 or 3 hex stretches and managed to cross multiple divisions into each hex so with a defensive CV of about 24 we are not going to be able to shift him and we concentrate on damage limitation.

Turn 77 - 16 Dec 44

Not unexpectedly the rot accelerates with 2 surrenders, 17 retreats and just 2 holds across the front. A couple of the thrusts advancing 30miles which doesn't bode well for better weather, and clearly the allies aren't suffering many supply problems. Not much we can do at this point other than a bit of desparate firefighting really. At least the attacks are costing the allies a little with -15 US and -10 other casualty VPs for an overall -4 slide. But its not looking likely we will be able to contain him to just taking Essen and Cologne given how much time there is on the clock so he will reap some big city points before long.

2 minor bright spots. But be warned, they are collapsing dwarf star in a distant galaxy bright, you really won't need shades! Firstly we counterattack against an allied break in the line in the Belfort gap for a second week and this time its successful thanks to 4 FJ Div and we restore the integrity of the line. Small victories though, as he really hasn't put too much effort in here.

Secondly the crazy offensive in Italy continues. Its pointless, doesn't have a realistic objective, will end up doing us more harm in the long run, but it does fill the papers with a few much needed victories - just what the Dr (Goebbels) ordered. We mine a weak seam in the line and exploit it and push through our old friends 90 PzGn and a couple of bdes. They are vulnerable to a counterattack themselves but if it fails there might be another chance to give him a scare. QBall admitted on email that the first attacks definately freaked him out a bit. Mission (sort of) accomplished I guess. Now we are just carrying on for pure mischief really.

Rome is worth a lot of victory points....taking it would probably save you from a defeat.

Casualty points also help your victory total..so surrendering allied units are good too. I suspect that there are a lot of inbound allied divisions to put an end to it though.

At the minimum I can hope to cause a bit of a crisis. He's running this theatre on a shoestring so dragging more units back is a small victory. But the potential upside is big on the offchance I can surround a unit for sure. I think QBall is to savvy to let this happen though, and certainly going to be tough to achieve in winter mud. Hopefully a bit of fun trying though!

Oh, make the objective Rome. You don't have to actually think that you'll get there, but it looks good in the papers and everyone can talk in the post war histories about how crazy you were to think you could get that far. Any points you can pick up in Italy are going to help the final score!